Newspaper clipping about George Black, 17 April 1992

Description

This newspaper clipping from The Jewish Chronicle notes the sudden rise to fame of George Black, 75, as the last Jew in Merthyr Tydfil. Mr Black reports having grown up in a vibrant Jewish community that has since dwindled and in 1992 comprised him, his wife, and a local widow.

According to Mr Black, many of the first generation Jews in South Wales came from Russia and Poland and ended up employed by the ironworks. Having saved enough money, many of them would move on to North America. Many of those who remained congregated in Merthyr.

The article also notes that the Merthyr synagogue, which closed in 1984, was then used as a gymnasium.

Merthyr Tydfil was once home to one of the largest Jewish communities of the South Wales Valleys. The first Jews are believed to have arrived there in the 1820s and the first purpose-built synagogue was erected either in the late 1840s or the early 1850s. The thriving community soon outgrew the premises and a new synagogue opened on Church Street in 1877. From the 1920s to the mid-1930s, the Merthyr Tydfil Hebrew Congregation had up to 400 members, but with rapid changes in the economic conditions and the exodus that followed, the membership dropped to 175 by 1937. Services were held in Merthyr until the late 1970s.

Sources:
'The History of the Jewish Diaspora in Wales' by Cai Parry-Jones (http://e.bangor.ac.uk/4987);
JCR-UK/JewishGen (https://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/Community/merth/index.htm).

Depository: Glamorgan Archives.

• http://www.thejc.com (link opens in new window)